Benefits for Black and White Reversal Film (photo)?

Aside from being able to project onto a slide viewer or inspect your frames with a loupe, are there any benefits in shoot in BW reversal still film?

Juan Paller said:

Aside from being able to project onto a slide viewer or inspect your frames with a loupe, are there any benefits in shoot in BW reversal still film?

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Reversal B&W film is meant for projection, yes. I can't think of any other benefits.

Probably finer grain.

Very long tonal range is possible.

Ian

i have heard b/w chromes are great to work with.
(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

The only advantage of B&W chromogenic films is that they can be processed like color film. But then there is the stability issue which is no better than for regular color films. If you do your own B&W processing then there is no advantage.

Juan Paller said:

Aside from being able to project onto a slide viewer or inspect your frames with a loupe, are there any benefits in shoot in BW reversal still film?

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When doing the reversal process, the "blacks" are fully exposed and then developed. This makes the grain more uniform and appear smaller. So in effect you see finer grain.

Gerald C Koch said:

The only advantage of B&W chromogenic films is that they can be processed like color film. But then there is the stability issue which is no better than for regular color films. If you do your own B&W processing then there is no advantage.

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He meant B/W slides (B/W negative film reversal processed), not B/W chromogenic film.
B/W chromogenic film is different. And I think it's great as well.
By the way you just made me remember that i have like 4 rolls of Ilford XP2 waiting to be used.

For darkroom "photoshop" style work, I've really wished for an easy reversal film. For masking on the paper or neg plane, or, say, sizing an existing sky negative to fit a certain composition.

Skies particularly, it would be really handy if I could size a negative as needed and go right to negative without another step. I need to learn about reversal processes I suppose.

Thanks, everyone for the input. I occasionally process BW reversal 8mm cine film and it's a pain in the butt compared to BW negative processing. I'd hate to go through the hassle of doing that with reversal still film and realize that the images (neg vs rev) are essentially or indistinguishable.

Juan Paller said:

Thanks, everyone for the input. I occasionally process BW reversal 8mm cine film and it's a pain in the butt compared to BW negative processing. I'd hate to go through the hassle of doing that with reversal still film and realize that the images (neg vs rev) are essentially or indistinguishable.

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They are not indistinguishable. The process is different and thus the resulting grain structure is different to the eye. And if you're using 8mm then the grain is going to be evident whatever its look is.

In the negative process, you develop grain crystals that were exposed to light - and of course the development of each grain is proportional to the amount of light it received.

In the positive process, the image is formed of grains that were fully (fully!) exposed to light, and, also, developed to completion.

Finally, in the positive process you (usually) develop to a much higher contrast index and this might have an advantage when doing scanning of the film.